I wish we spent a little more seeking the joys of life. I feel myself drawn far too easily in to the status game… chasing the recognition, the approval of people whose opinions I don’t even care about.

Reducing time on social media has helped- using it as a tool for inspiration rather than an anchor of comparison.

Comparison. Fkin eats me alive. Find the best thing I’ve been able to do is compare me to me 6 months ago. It’s never been about comparison against others. There’s always someone better at something. And some day we die and all we care about is the quality of our relationships:

– 5 Reg Dying
– Harvard Happy

So why is it so damn difficult to just focus on me? Why is it so damn difficult to focus on the progress and the joy seeking and the excitement of play?

But the only antidote I’ve found has been realizing that nobody actually cares. If I approach everything I do with the intention that nobody around me gives a single flying fertile fuck… it liberates me.

I no longer feel the pull of embarrassment or the highs of validation. Ignoring the congratulations when I’m up helps ignore the boos of disapproval when I’m down. It’s all the same game: am I living for others or am I living for me?

But god damn it’s difficult to live for me? Helps having friends that don’t give a flying fertile fuck about status either – spending time around people that are focused on the long term rewards.
– Play long term games with long term people

And according to Plutchik, “on a long enough time scale the survival rate for everyone drops to zero”. Death and taxes. The only guarantees.

So if we extend our time horizon 3 months, 1 year, 5…10…50 years down the line… so much of what feels relevant- the boss, the coworkers, the projects, the assignments… they all fade away into perspective. They slowly dissipate in to the sands of meaningfulness, lost forever in reality and our memories.

So then why is it so damn hard to push it out on the daily? Why is it so dang difficult to not care about others opinions?

Seeking joy, man. And that’s such a personalized experience. Seeking things that make ME feel good. And it hurts when those aren’t the same things as what the people around me want. So happiness poses a bit of a fork in the road – Do you choose your own personal happiness or do you choose the relationships around you, the proxies for happiness?

But I think that the ones that really matter, the people that actually care about you for you have a habit of sticking around regardless of your choices. Lifes got a funny way of filtering out the bs… in the long run at least. But in the short term it means a dose of Introspection and an even stronger dose of courage.

And when there aren’t many role models that’s a difficult task. It’s what draws me so strongly to books… you get to choose your own idols. We are not confined to the restrictions of our current social circles. We get to get lost in the eternity of history and all the incredible people the Melleniums of Humanity has to offer.

So I guess here’s to Biographies and stories. May they continue to rewrite my own life.

We get to customize our own life, but the only way to do that is take a page out of the books of people who customized theirs.

“Life must be lived forward but understood backwards”

Soren Kierkegaard

“The funny thing is you can find something you hate in nearly everyone. But the cool part is the opposite is also true”

Unknown

References

• Harvard Happiness Study
• 5 Regrets of the Dying
• Long Term Games with Long Term People
• Ethical is Long Term Greedy